Well, I seem to be having a hard time getting the updates done every month! We've been busy with the kids...soccer is now finished, karate, swimming, violin, skating and hockey are the big ones now! We have a little time for ourselves and I have been playing hockey and running...Ehren is going to start up with hockey again soon and has been randomly running. :-) He just signed up for a marathon in May so he'll need to get his butt in gear soon...starting in the New Year!
We made it through Halloween in October and my parents came to visit in October as well. Had a nice visit and we had Dad finish our floor in our garage (epoxy). Ehren also ended up having his 4th and hopefully final corrective eye surgery. He has needed it since last March and finally got it scheduled. So far his eyes are healing well (takes longer with PRK surgery) and we expect his vision to continue to stabilize. Needless to say, he spent his birthday not doing much b/c the eye surgery was shortly before his birthday...so we celebrated with a nice dinner out with family.
In November we had a quick few times on the ice before we took off to Mexico for a visit with my parents. We went much earlier than usual this year...planned it for the Thanksgiving break. We were pleasantly surprised to find out when we got there that they still had baby sea turtles hatching so we booked a tour to release some of the turtles. There are several areas where they "save" the turtles. Basically at night they have several marine biologists that study turtles go out and dig up the eggs that have been laid by the turtles (the eggs are laid at night). They take them back to a protected area, they label them with the date and how many eggs were relocated. It's very specific as they have to rebury them at a particular depth in the sand. The eggs are expected to hatch within about 45 days and then they release them to the ocean. Each nest has about 100 eggs and every year they save about 800, 000 eggs and only about 8000 turtles will survive the ocean. The little guys can only hold their breath for 10 seconds and between birds and stingrays they have so many prey to outsmart. Francesco was a great guide and gave us a lot of information. One last cool fact...the turtle eggs are soft...unlike many eggs we know. When they hatch the turtles are about 1 to 1 1/2" long. The turtles we released had hatched that day. Very cool experience. In our time in Puerto Vallarta, Ehren and I also got to golf. We got in a a couple rounds and I finally got to experience the Vista Vallarta Golf Course...one of the two that my parents are members at. I have never golfed there before and it's beautiful...cut out of the jungle! Evan even made it out to the driving range with my Dad one day. We had a great, relaxing trip and look forward to going again sometime.
We celebrated Thanksgiving a couple times...Mom made us a turkey in Mexico and then we had turkey a couple more times here when we got back...wow, so much turkey! It was great and now we're looking forward to it again at Christmas!
We've been out skating a lot and now with the kids all in skating lessons and Evan in hockey, we're at the rink 3 times a week...wow, sounds like when we were kids! I also took Evan up skiing a week or so ago and he did great. We're also planning on getting up as a family this weekend. It's fun to be able to go as a family now.
The girls and Evan all had report cards since my last blog. Everyone is doing wonderfully and we are very proud of them. The girls have worked very hard at violin and put on one heck of a performance up in Estes Park last weekend. It was a great Christmas concert and it even snowed right before so it felt like Christmas!
We look forward to Christmas. We'll spend Christmas Eve with the Landrigans and may be expecting Ehren's brother Nathan and his fiance for the holidays. Once we get through all that we look forward to our New Year Holiday. We have booked a 5 day Disney cruise to the Bahamas! We fly out of Denver New Years day and look forward to it...never been on a cruise so we'll see how it goes!! We'll update you in the new year! Until then, look for our Holiday letter in email...we'll be sending it out soon! Have a great Christmas and New year!
